Wednesday 14 May 2025

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

It has been good to be back with you this last week after our trip to the UK where we enjoyed meeting up with family and friends. Thank you very much to Archana for taking the service and preaching on Sunday 4th May. I know that was much appreciated.

Sunday 18th May
During the service this coming Sunday the Teens Group will meet. Please do pray for the members of this group, for James who will be leading the group, and Sue who will be helping.

Sunday 25th May: Baptism of Jesse Aduba
We are delighted that Jesse will be baptised on this Sunday, and James will do his first baptism! Please pray for Jesse, his parents, Roland and Goodness, and his sisters, Purity and Praise.

Green Investments
After the service on 25th May, the Eco group are organising an information and discussion session on 'Financing Green and Greening Finance'. At our Eco Forum a few months ago, many people expressed a desire to have a session on this topic. So please come to find out more and raise your questions.

Goodbye to Rick, Marielouise, Lucas and Frederik
The Slettenhaar family are leaving us later in June. Their last Sunday will be Sunday 15th June. We will certainly miss them, but wish them well as they prepare to move to Vietnam. They would like to collect messages from us before they leave for a Friendship Book. Below is a message from them:

Dear friends,

Before we move to Vietnam this summer, we would like to ask you to fill in a page in our friendship book as a lasting memory of our time in Switzerland. We have compiled a list of questions that you can answer on the website – individually or as a family. All you need to do is follow the steps and fill your personal page with answers and two photos. You can either do this in English or in German. When we leave, all of your pages will then be printed into a book, which we can bring with us to Vietnam, so we never forget our friendship.

Thank you so much, and have fun answering the questions!

With kind regards,

Frederik, Lucas, Marielouise & Rick Slettenhaar

Pentecost Special Service, Photo, and International Lunch
Pentecost is 8th June. Please do join us for this special service as we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church.
After the service we will be taking a new church photo to go on the home page of our new website. We would like as many people as possible, of all ages, countries and cultures, to be in the photo.
International lunch: we will then share a lunch together as in previous years. We encourage everyone to bring a dish from their region or country to share. This is a very special community occasion so don't miss it!

Easter Hymn
We have not sung the Easter hymn below this year, but it is one of my favourites. I hope these words will encourage us to trust the Risen Lord and the life he brings even at times when 'our hearts our wintry':

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:

Love is come again,
like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, Love whom men had slain,
thinking that never he would wake again,
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen: Love is come again...

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
he that for three days in the grave had lain,
quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen: Love is come again...

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
thy touch can call us back to life again,
fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again,
like wheat that springeth green.

With love in Christ,
Helen